Tag Archives: NBC

Two of NBC’s new comedies, Up All Night and Free Agents, premiered Wednesday night in a special post-America’s Got Talent time slot (a move that seemed to benefit the former more than the latter). It’s been a couple days at this point, but I have some quick thoughts on each after the jump.

Below is an excerpt from my review of Parks and Recreation that ran in today’s edition of the Tufts Daily. The article is the latest edition of “Second Chances,” a semi−recurring feature that looks at TV shows that deserve a second chance from viewers. Their ratings may be low, but their quality is high, so if you tuned out early on, here’s our case for why you should give each show another try.

For today’s Tufts Daily, I wrote the weekly Weekender feature, focusing on the continued lack of racial diversity on television. Although progress has been made over the past several decades, the roles available to people of color are still unrepresentative, qualitatively and quantitatively, of the population of color in the U.S.

I talked to TV critics and writers Mo Ryan (AOL), Dan Fienberg (HitFix), Josh Wolk (Vulture) and Myles McNutt (Cultural Learnings) to get their thoughts on the current TV landscape in terms of racial diversity. After the jump, I have the article intro, and you can read the full article at the Daily website here.

In today’s issue of the Tufts Daily, I have my fourth and final piece in a four-part series investigating the current state of network television comedy. I’m taking a network by network approach, and today’s installment focuses on NBC.

NBC is a struggling network. It is currently in fourth place among the broadcast networks in total viewership, averaging 7.39 million viewers, and is tied for third place in adults 18-49 (the coveted advertiser demographic) with a 2.4 rating average.

The fact that NBC lacks a certifiable hit, though (aside from “The Office” and maybe “Law and Order: SVU”), has been a blessing in disguise for most of the network’s Comedy Night Done Right lineup. “Community,” “Parks and Recreation” and even multiple Emmy-winner “30 Rock” all underperform in the ratings, but since the ratings threshold is so low, their performances are acceptable and good enough to be renewed for new seasons (as all four aforementioned comedies have been).